Wesnoth mainline content suitability

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Neuromancer
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Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Neuromancer »

What age group are Wesnoth mainline campaigns aimed to? If there is given any age group, why exactly that age group?
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Iris
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Iris »

Development Team wrote:7. Avoid gratuitous violence, sexuality, and mature themes in your content unless you give a word of warning about it which every player will see. By default content is expected to stay roughly comparable to PG-13 or ESRB T.
This is the legalese for add-ons. All add-ons in the add-ons server that comply with the “defaults” are potential candidates for inclusion in mainline, so...
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Neuromancer
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Neuromancer »

Ok, and why was the PG-13 adopted for mainline?
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Caphriel »

Do you mean why PG-13 instead of something higher, or why PG-13 instead of something lower?
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Neuromancer
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Neuromancer »

I mean like... Whats the target audience of the mainline campaigns? To me the plot is intended roughly for 13-year-old teens. Why are developers aiming at this target audience?
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by doofus-01 »

Surely the idea is to be as inclusive as possible. If you are saying the plot (of Heir to the Throne?) is too simple, well, feel free write a better one. I don't see any reason to think a conscious decision was made to zero in on "13-year-old teens" to the exclusion of everyone else.
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Velensk »

I think the idea here was to be inclusive as possible. Of course, there is a limit to how many 'sensibilities' you can avoid in a war game which by nature will likely include widespread bloodshed. Other things can be avoided more easily.

If you're commenting on the quality of the writing then you're just tramping ground I'm not inclined to worry about. I think that the developers were mainly concerned with coming up with a plot that allows for the requisite scenarios.
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by ancestral »

Neuromancer wrote:I mean like... Whats the target audience of the mainline campaigns?
You might take a look at the longstanding poll Dave put out almost 7 years ago. The poll data may have been reset once or twice since then, and it's not entirely scientific, but it shows a little over ⅓ of players are under 20 and ⅓ 28 and up with the remaining ⅓ in the middle.

Wesnoth is one of those games that is easy to learn but difficult to master. It’s simple enough where kids and teens can get into the game, yet it still attracts an adult following for it’s similarity to other games people have played before, for its intense strategic value and for its customization and community-driven contributions and development.

As far as what content to put in, ask yourself “what would you like to see?” Chances are other people will like it too. :) The best part about the community, the forums and the IRC channel is the available feedback. Take advantage of the resources here — ask questions, use the wiki, and look and feel free to base what you like from other people’s add-ons.
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Neuromancer
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Neuromancer »

ancestral wrote: The poll data may have been reset once or twice since then, and it's not entirely scientific, but it shows a little over ⅓ of players are under 20 and ⅓ 28 and up with the remaining ⅓ in the middle.
Three halfs? :)

Thanks for the replies. Formerly I wanted to answer with long post, but after contemplating on it I think all that needs to be expressed are these two quotes
Insinuator wrote:1. Interesting plot. Something more than Elves driving out yet another invasion of Orcs or Humans driving out another invasion of Undead. And not another earth-shattering-epic-quest-which-changes-the-face-of-Wesnoth-forever story. There are so many of these it's ridiculous.
21isaias wrote:Im looking for a campaign where the story is well-developed and isnt the same repetitive elves/humans stopping orges/undead. Im looking for something thats interesting.
and this: I think the Battle for Wesnoth is in stage where the community needs to focus on specific groups of players instead of broad ones. Im working on campaign suited for the quoted-players demands, but it is not intended for mainline (because it is not enacted in the wesnoth universe).
Please, do you know of any players eager to participate in the long awaited mainline drake campaign?
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Eleazar »

Neuromancer wrote:and this: I think the Battle for Wesnoth is in stage where the community needs to focus on specific groups of players instead of broad ones.
Why? We have a large established fan base over a wide age range. What's the net advantage for suddenly deciding to alienate 2/3rds in favor of 1/3rd? The core of Wesnoth (hint: strategy) correlates only loosely with age. And campaigns can (and are) made that appeal to a many different ages and interests.

If there were a lot of similar games competing for player's interest, there might be benefit in specializing and more narrowly targeting a demographic, but this isn't the case.
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Neuromancer »

Eleazar wrote:We have a large established fan base over a wide age range. What's the net advantage for suddenly deciding to alienate 2/3rds in favor of 1/3rd? The core of Wesnoth (hint: strategy) correlates only loosely with age.
Exactly. Are we changing the core of Wesnoth? No. We have 16 mainline campaigns for broad audience. If we add, lets say, one campaign suited exactly for 6-year-old abandoned orphans, and one for 34 rule admirers are we alienating someone? The net advantage in adding this specific-aimed-content (and, in this case, as you wrote, content aimed for the whole of the 1/3 of the player population) is in increasing the probabilty these players will contribute to the game, thus increase its quality and appeal for people from many different ages and interests (as you wrote) in the long run.
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Iris »

Neuromancer wrote:We have 16 mainline campaigns for broad audience. If we add, lets say, one campaign suited exactly for 6-year-old abandoned orphans, and one for 34 rule admirers are we alienating someone?
The rating differences you are presenting here would make the developers’ standpoint very ambiguous to the audience and contribute very little back to us, in the context of mainline. You can tell a fun and interesting story without resorting to mature content or — in the other end — dumbing down the writing to appeal to 6 year old kids.

As for the drake campaign business, ESR and Fabian already reserved that slot in mainline with Wings of Victory.
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Atz »

Neuromancer wrote:Thanks for the replies. Formerly I wanted to answer with long post, but after contemplating on it I think all that needs to be expressed are these two quotes
Insinuator wrote:1. Interesting plot. Something more than Elves driving out yet another invasion of Orcs or Humans driving out another invasion of Undead. And not another earth-shattering-epic-quest-which-changes-the-face-of-Wesnoth-forever story. There are so many of these it's ridiculous.
21isaias wrote:Im looking for a campaign where the story is well-developed and isnt the same repetitive elves/humans stopping orges/undead. Im looking for something thats interesting.
I don't see how either of those things have anything to do with suitability for a particular age group. A lot of games rated 15+ or even 17+ or 18+ don't have particularly interesting or original plots. In fact, I find that a lot of them have incredibly shallow storylines and characterisation, because they are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator through the traditional means of gratuitous blood, swearing, and boobs.
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by Neuromancer »

shadowmaster wrote: As for the drake campaign business, ESR and Fabian already reserved that slot in mainline with Wings of Victory.
Oh, didnt know about this. Another broad-audience campaign, though.
shadowmaster wrote: You can tell a fun and interesting story without resorting to mature content or — in the other end — dumbing down the writing to appeal to 6 year old kids.
Atz wrote:A lot of games rated 15+ or even 17+ or 18+ don't have particularly interesting or original plots. In fact, I find that a lot of them have incredibly shallow storylines and characterisation, because they are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator through the traditional means of gratuitous blood, swearing, and boobs.
Thats true. Good story doesnt need to cover itself under some mature rating. Anyway, the questions stands: Why dont we focus on specific groups of players instead of broad ones?
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Re: Wesnoth mainline content suitability

Post by ivanovic »

Neuromancer wrote:
shadowmaster wrote: You can tell a fun and interesting story without resorting to mature content or — in the other end — dumbing down the writing to appeal to 6 year old kids.
Atz wrote:A lot of games rated 15+ or even 17+ or 18+ don't have particularly interesting or original plots. In fact, I find that a lot of them have incredibly shallow storylines and characterisation, because they are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator through the traditional means of gratuitous blood, swearing, and boobs.
Thats true. Good story doesnt need to cover itself under some mature rating. Anyway, the questions stands: Why dont we focus on specific groups of players instead of broad ones?
And what exactly would be targeting specific age groups? In general most of those classifications are *only* a matter of "lets protect the youth by not showing them something that they are not likely to be able to handle". Meaning "too much gore", "too much sex", ... Those age rating of games tend to *NOT* be something like "anyone above 6 years won't be playing this" kind of rating as it is done on toys.

In general I think noone developing something for Wesnoth thinks along the line of "lets target players that are X years old" but more like "what do I think would be something nice and interesting to do". Talking about age groups and whatnot does not help here in any way. The idea would more be "I want something with a deep and hard to get story, with some darker backgrounds" (as an example). Yeah, something like this is less likely to attract younger people that don't want to see such story things. But it does not mean that it would get some specific age rating.
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